


Without Anything to Numb You

by axumun



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician)
Genre: Cutting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Abuse, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-24 00:44:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axumun/pseuds/axumun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam knew about some of it. But he would never know about <i>this</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without Anything to Numb You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alyriia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alyriia/gifts).



> Title is from Sia's "Numb".
> 
> This was written per a request from BloodyUndertaker13 (one of many which have gone unfulfilled). It's a bit out of my comfort zone, and I can only hope that I was at least on-par with the emotions I tried to capture.

Adam knew about some of it. He found out about Luke's random outbursts of rage when he was already too smitten to cop out and run.

Luke still wondered what would've happened if Adam had seen his dark side first - had seen the wickedness in his eyes as he lost control of his own mind only to come back to real life wih a splitting migraine and an aching conscience. He's chased so many people away already, people he thought would always be around for him.

But Adam...Adam has always been unpredictable. Usually for the better.

He knew about some of it. But he would never know about _this_.

He'd never know that sometimes, when oceans and deserts and time zones separated them and Adam wasn't around to hold when that first icy prick of hurt clawed under Luke's skin, Luke chased it with a razor.

Adam would never see the little white lines on his wrist, or the darker ones on top that were slowly stitching themselves together but would never go away - wounds that time could never heal.

Even if he wanted to, he couldn't let Adam see the visions playing out during his sleep when the other side of their bed was empty: cutting-edge shards of his reality. Bruises and foster homes and more bruises. Hunger and thirst and shouting.

They didn't even let up when he awakened. They would only get worse.

*

Once, when they were both getting ready for a red carpet event, and Adam was putting on his usual warpaint, carefully studying his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Luke had taken a sharp breath that sounded way too much like a scoff.

Adam had stopped abruptly, then frowned, his eyes shifting to gaze at Luke from the mirror. He lowered his eyeliner pencil as if calling a truce. "What? Does this _bother_ you?"

His tone was some strange cocktail of a defensive snarl and a vulnerable murmur. Luke's desire to wipe that look from Adam's face gave him enough incentive to give him another piece of the puzzle: when Luke was a teenager, wearing makeup was asking for a fist in his face.

As Luke had hoped, Adam's expression sombered. In fact, he got all syrupy sweet, his eyes glittering with sympathy. He turned around and pet Luke's hair, and Luke didn't even flinch.

He didn't make any move to pull away when Adam sat beside him and pulled him into a tight, warm hug, although all of his muscles shook with instinct to hide. The confession had weakened him considerably. The idea of going out at all suddenly made him want to vomit.

Adam _huusssssshed_ when Luke shivered, and pulled him in tighter.

"He's wrong," Adam whispered. "You know he is. This doesn't make someone weak." Adam gestured to his shimmering, smoky eyes. "What makes someone weak is ignorance, baby. You're stronger than anyone I know."

 _Not as strong as you think_ , Luke thought. But at least he could breathe again after Adam's reassurance.

*

There were good days, even when Adam was away.

When he was feeling domestic, he could watch movies, rearrange some shelves, maybe make a present for Adam. He was teaching himself how to paint and how to knit, now that no one was around to tell him it made him a sissy or a faggot.

Sometimes Luke found the strength to overcome his anxiety over the whole human race and drive into the city. He could walk around and window-shop, slip into a cafe for a latte...little things that made his senses come alive, made him _feel_ again.

But other times, during these rather courageous outings, this ability to feel took him by the shoulders and shook him like a ragdoll.

It happened at certain times when he saw little kids with their parents on the street, begging, "Mommy, I want this! I want that!" At the worst of times, it could trigger tears like a sucker punch, mourning for the loss of his own innocence, and his floating questions about his own family.

One day, while Luke roamed about the supermarket, just taking an inventory, he caught a glimpse of a man who looked way too much like his foster father. The sight had made him scurry back around the corner like a chased rabbit.

When he made back into his car, he was shouting and panting, digging his fingernails into his forearm to bank the flood inside of his mind. He banged his head against the window once, twice, but it wasn't hard enough to knock his latter teenage years from his brain.

He curled himself into a ball in the driver's seat, hands clamped over his ears, trying to keep the voices at bay - the voices that insisted he was worthless, a mistake, a faliure, a disappointment. Never should've been adopted, never should've been fucking _born_...

~

_"I don't have a family," Luke had explained to Adam one night, a joking response to something Adam had said. He tried to laugh at himself to keep the truth out, but he knew that Adam could see through Luke's attempt to deceive himself._

_"That's not true," Adam had said, so softly and tenderly that Luke wanted to kiss him, to hold him, to run from him. "You have mine."_

~

Luke didn't remember the drive back home. He couldn't remember if the radio had been on, if the traffic had been bad.

Adam wasn't due home for two days.

Two days to heal. To hide.

He was stone-faced for the first cut. He was sure and steady, not even bothered by the silence in the room. He didn't make any sound as blood trickled from the wound, not of relief or pain.

But by the second one, Luke was bawling, remembering the days when his friends had tried to get him "help", and all sorts of professionals in starched white coats waggled a finger at him and told him that he was destructive, impulsive. Countless accusations that he was seeking attention screamed in Luke's ears. Attention was the last thing he needed. He just wanted... _peace_.

All of the voices, even the memories of the doctors paid twice his salary by the hour to spill the language of medicine into his brain and hope he didn't understand, just told him he was weak.

Weak if he did, weak if he didn't....

Luke held in his sobs and made a third cut, because he'd rather be weak and able to _feel_ again.

The front door took that opportune moment to open, shut.

Panic seeped into Luke's flowing tears, mixing with the blood dripping into the sink. Not Adam. He couldn't know. He wouldn't get it. He'd get scared, he'd leave.

Luke locked the door. He took a deep breath. The pain was getting uncomfortable as the high wore off and the mess got harder to clean. Luke's mind started scrambling, overloaded when he tried to remember where the gauze was. He hadn't needed it in a while...

"Baby?" Adam knocked softly on the door. "Where are you? Are you in there?"

One loud, shuddering inhale gave him away.

"Luke?" Adam tried the knob.

" _Please..._ " Luke gasped helplessly. Now he was in trouble. He needed a follow-up. "Go away."

"Honey," Luke heard Adam lean heavily against the door. "Is something wrong? Are you sick? Open up, babe, please."

Sick, yeah. Sick was what he was. It wasn't like he'd never heard it before. Luke weighed his options: make another cut, or open the door. He was panting now, adrenaline and confusion and pain mingling in his body until his mind left him again, that scary but unstoppable headspace of losing control.

He could still hear himself snarling like some caged, rabid animal, and he felt little pains all over as if he were thrashig around. Over it all, though, Luke heard his own name, ripped desperately from Adam's throat as he kept uselessly tugging the knob.

Luke was at war. One half of him wanted to give in to Adam, his security and compassion, but the other half reasoned that there would be no compassion for this flailing urchin bleeding all over the floor.

Adam's voice was lilting now, pleading. "Sweetie. Luke. Let me in. Let me help, let me take care of you."

Luke felt drunken and out of his body as he complied, reaching up from where he lay staring at the ceiling to fumble with the lock.

Adam cracked the door open cautiously and inched his way in, visibly  
stifling a scream when he got a glimpse of Luke. He settled for a broken whisper of "Oh my God...", and Luke could almost applaud him for retaining the brainpower to get a cloth for the blood, if only his arms didn't feel so heavy.

While Adam dabbed at the open cuts and rinsed away the mess that had been on the floor, he talked to Luke the whole time, mostly _stay with me_ and _oh my god_ and _you'll be okay, baby_. Nothing like Luke had expected. There was no scolding. No threats.

He wanted to tell Adam that he was pressing too hard, doing this wrong, but his throat was closed. He felt like never talking again.

Adam didn't say a word as he wrapped Luke's wrist, trying to be gentle, but his hands were still shaking.

It must've been a couple of hours - maybe days - later when Luke propped his head up to find that he was in his own bed, pressed against Adam's side. He had a scrap of energy again, and his thirst had been sated.

Adam's fingers trailed down the length of Luke's upper arm. "Luke," he began, gentle yet authoritative, "you said you'd come to me if it got really bad."

"You weren't here." Luke hid his face in the pillows, twisting his bad wrist the wrong way in the process. Every way was the wrong way.

He knew that if he could see Adam's face now, he'd see guilt, and Luke regretted his own words instantly.

"You're mad," Luke muttered. It wasn't anything close to a question.

"Mad? Why..." Adam pulled him closer. "Why should I be? I mean, I really wish you'd told me earlier..."

Luke shivered. His explanation was shredded on its way to his mouth. "You wouldn't....get...no one gets it."

To Luke's surprise, Adam chuckled. The sound only made Luke's doubts grow.

"I wanna show you something," Adam said.

He stretched toward the bedside lamp and switched it on, blinding Luke for a long moment. He sat up and blinked questioningly once his vision wasn't painfully bright.

Adam turned to kneel on the bed and face Luke, extending his right wrist, and Luke blinked again.

Adam smiled. "Might not be able to see it now. I made sure the tats hid them. But once...in high school, one day it got pretty bad. There were the bullies...they loved it, 'cause I never fought back. Then of my college applications got rejected. I didn't know where I fit, and I felt like the biggest waste of space, like I'd never do anything worthwhile. I didn't know what else to do. It was just _awful_."

Luke looked harder; maybe he had a trained eye for these things. Sure enough, almost completely healed over, he spotted two raised nicks beneath the ink of Adam's Eye of Horus, marks made permanent where unskilled fingers had cut too deep.

"I stopped right after and I never did it again. I hated it. I had to really look myself in the mirror and decide how the rest of my life was going to go. I could listen to the cowards at school, I could buy into the lies I was being fed...Or I could make my own way. I could hold my head up and never let them drown me again."

Luke was staring, wide-eyed, trying to piece the story together. "But I..."

Adam squeezed his shoulder. "I know. Maybe it's not that easy for everyone. But I know why you did it. And I'll help you with every step of this, baby, whatever it takes until you don't need to listen to the voices anymore."

But the possibility of not needing his release simply didn't exist.

"Don't fix me," Luke told him, almost accusing. _You'll only break yourself_.

Adam leaned in to kiss Luke's forehead, and Luke had the strangest urge to press into it, to accept the gesture. To accept that someone could love him. "Never. You're not broken."

Luke wanted so badly to contradict him, but the cocoon Adam was spinning for him kept his doubt at bay, finally.

"You made it," Adam murmured against Luke's temple, and then Luke was wrapped around Adam like an octopus as he rocked them both side to side. "You're alive. The worst is over."

"It's not," Luke gasped. He weakly gestured toward his own head. "It's in here."

Adam nuzzled the top of his head as if he meant to draw the demons out with his lips. "Promise me, again. When it gets bad, you'll come to me. I don't care if I'm on the other side of the planet or in the next room. That's more important than anything."

"You don't..." Luke began to fret. "You have so much to do, so much to worry about, you don't need..."

"Yes, I do." Adam stroked Luke's back. "I love you. I love your good days and your bad days, and your pain and your happiness. Nothing comes above that."

There were more protests simmering at the back of Luke's head, like always. But there in Adam's arms, blanketed by the safety of his warmth and the numb spreading through his body, it was almost possible for him to ignore them.

Because, yeah, he was alive. Even if sometimes, he wished he wasn't. Maybe those days would always come, even decades down the road. But soon, maybe they would be so few and far in between that he could always keep a little reserve of hope.

Soon he might be able to turn his head from the whispers in his ears, the visions that haunted him on cold nights. It might take a few late-night phone calls and a lot more tears - as if there hadn't been enough - but just maybe, someday he could open his eyes and believe it was over.

Maybe by then, Adam would still be holding his hand through it.


End file.
